Doug Padilla

My friend Doug Padilla.  Doug is a great artist.

Many years ago we were neigh­bors in South Min­neapo­lis.  He was a cool guy, with cool kids, wild art masks on his walls, who played soc­cer (a great pas­sion of my youth), and ran a soc­cer t-shirt com­pany fea­tur­ing his art.

Doug has won plenty of awards, his art has hung in major muse­ums includ­ing the Min­nesota Insti­tute of Art, he has had inter­na­tional shows, and is sold widely.

Doug claims “I have no idea, I work from no idea, I come from not tra­di­tion of idea” but I don’t buy it.  I see a con­sis­tent pas­sion for life, com­ing to grips with mor­tal­ity, and root­ed­ness in his Mex­i­can ances­try.  I think Doug is an artist of pro­found ideas and deep tradition.

You can find him at dougieland.com.

I have to admit that this por­trait was some­what unin­ten­tion­ally soft-focused, but I liked the result so I’m count­ing it as a happy accident.…